Admit it, when one of your league mates snagged Alex Rodriguez in the 22nd round of your draft last month, you cracked a joke in the chat room. For all of his accomplishments, Rodriguez was pretty much just a punch line entering the season.
Even though he hit three home runs in spring and generally looked like to be in shape, nobody really expected anything from Rodriguez after a year away from the game. At 39 and with a history of injuries and suspensions in the very recent past, a bounce back season wasn't just unlikely; it seemed pretty much impossible.
And yet, here we are, on April 24, and Rodriguez is on the verge of yet another huge milestone and in the midst of his most productive month of hitting since at least June, 2011. This isn't just unexpected, it is one of the biggest surprises of the season. How is he doing it?
It is no surprise that Rodriguez isn't succeeding in anything like the way he used to. Rodriguez is striking out quite a bit, as he has to cheat a bit to catch up to pitches he used to be able to take the other way; just nine of his 32 balls in play have gone to the right half of the field. Even a cursory glance at the spray charts (via FanGraphs.com) show that Rodriguez has been pretty much a dead-pull hitter so far:
At least so far, that hasn't been a bad thing. It's not just that Rodriguez has hit four home runs that is promising; it's how hard he is hitting the ball. Rodriguez crushed a Nathan Karns pitch 477 feet last Friday, the longest home run in the majors. Three of his four home runs have been classified as "no-doubters" by HitTrackerOnline.com -- the fourth cleared the fence by more than 10 vertical feet and would have been out in all 30 parks.
(Additionally, according to BaseballSavant.com's batted ball tracking data, Rodriguez ranks second in the majors in average velocity off the bat, at 97.6 miles per hour. However, this data only includes 21 of Rodriguez's 49 at-bats, so it can hardly be considered conclusive. A paucity of data wouldn't be a problem if MLB would release the Statcast data...)
It isn't all good news, obviously, as his elevated strikeout rate is going to limit Rodriguez's value in H2H leagues, while simultaneously dragging his batting average down for category-based scoring. He is swinging and missing on 14 percent of the pitches he has faced, though he has grown more selective with time to somewhat compensate. Though he can't make contact quite like he used to, Rodriguez is laying off 79 percent of all pitches defined as out of the strike zone by PITCHf/x, and is only swinging at 38.5 percent of all pitches.
If Rodriguez had a chance to be a contributor this season, this might be how you would draw it up. The 39-year-old isn't going to be able to handle all of the pitches he used to, so he would need to be more selective than ever, waiting for the right pitch to hit. That he has done this so far is a good sign.
Of course, who knows whether he can keep this up. Smart money has to be on him being unable to do so, given all the strikes against him. Rodriguez's age and history of injuries and PED-related suspensions, it is more than fair to be skeptical.
However, Rodriguez has probably already exceeded most expectations laid out for him at the start of the season, and seeing if he can keep it up will be one of the more fascinating storylines of the next few months.
